With all of the hype being
spewed out by Dan Blather and company this last month, one would think
that all gun laws were repealed, machine guns and flame throwers were
available mail order or over the counter with no ID needed at the local
7-11 and all of the crazies had been let out of the loony bin with a gun
in their hands. After all, we were being 'warned' about 'Uzi's and AK-47's
FLOODING the streets, weren't we? Of course all that happened was that
the manufacturing restrictions on magazines holding more than a 'magic'
number of cartridges and certain cosmetic features such as bayonet lugs
and flash suppressors have ended. I'm really amazed that it is being called
a 'win'. And after a conversation I had recently, I'm even more amazed.

I've worked in the firearms
industry for over 20 years now, from local gun shop to head technical
rep for a gunpowder company. I am back in the shop these days but I still
have some industry contacts, one of whom I spoke with. He had spent some
time talking this month with a well connected attorney that works for
various firearms concerns and he relayed some of their conversation to
me.

He, and others he knows,
are of the opinion that this 'win' will be a very short lived affair,
basically designed to get voters off the politicians backs for this election.
Others in Internet e-groups I subscribe to have expressed much the same
thing. The opinions from this gun industry attorney is that sometime after
the first of the year, (no matter who wins the election and after the
voters will be able to do anything about it), a new bill will be introduced
and passed with GUN MAKER support to permanently ban many brands and models
of semi-auto guns, grandfathering those already in existence, sparing
some select golden guns (as happened in kalifornia) that will be deemed
to still having some social value but making it impossible to make any
more that don't make the cut. Ever. He feels this will be accomplished
by a 'compromise' struck with some of the gun makers who will get protection
from any further law suits if they get behind and support this new bill.

Remember we were placed in
just such a position earlier this year, when pro and anti gun politicians
joined together to 'kill' a bill to help protect gun makers from the constant
barrage of law suits aimed against them when their products are misused,
after a ban on guns was added. Of course, many that voted to kill the
bill did it because it didn't create such a ban, NOT because they wanted
to protect the gun industry in any way. Others in the e-groups have expressed
that they feel some sort of a 'Stockton' will take place to help out this
new ban as well. As one person said it best, a few A-rabs (and
that is not meant as a slur against any race, but rather a comment about
the media's 'bogey man du jour') grab some AK's, SKS's, AR's
and related guns and shoot up a shopping mall and see how fast Mr. &
Mrs. Joe American call for a ban on guns of this sort.

All one has to do is to look
at Bill Ruger and see his years of support for bans of this sort to see
how many of the gun companies can and do stab us in the back. And the
NRA isn't much better. They were some of the same boosters that brought
us the GCA 68. In 1968, General Franklin Orth, Executive Vice President
of NRA, testified before Congress in favor of the Gun Control Act (GCA'68)
stating that the "[NRA does] not think that any sane American, who
calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument
which killed the president of the United States," (a ban on the mail-order
sale of firearms). His statement of NRA support is very similar to the
NRA support that brought us the NFA 1934.

No general agreement on what
will or will not happen to magazine production and sales at this point.
Some of the gun companies are shipping good magazines again, others are
reserving good magazines for new guns right now, still others still haven't
told distributors what they plan on doing. One of the big gun companies
(Sig Sauer) is apparently afraid that their magazines will end up in kalifornia
and they will get sued, so they are not releasing any just yet. (This
has not been stated publicly but comes from a good industry source. Their
website still states that only 10 round mags are available to the general
public.) Ruger has also not stated their position on magazine capacity
but with Bill Ruger's long held opinion that ten rounds was more than
enough for a 'sportsman' I'm not holding my breath about getting any new
factory mags for my mini-14. But Springfield Armory is shipping XD mags,
Beretta and others are shipping certificates with new guns good for free
factory hi-cap mags (unless you live in kalifornia or another area with
state restrictions) and many others are gearing up production and starting
to ship as well.

The prices have really dropped
on the new mags that were available. If you have been to a gun show in
the past month, you have undoubtedly seen more magazines available for
sale than you thought were in existence - and at much better prices. The
market is very dynamic right now with makers still deciding what to do
and the supply channels filling up. I'm going to fill in a few I need
very soon at the old time prices. Butler Creek has already shipped 10-22
mags, new AR mags are down to $8, STeN mags down to $3 again and Mec Gar
has sent a boat steaming this way with other goodies.

So what is a person to do?
Myself, I plan on building a couple more AR's for my younger sons to go
along with the 1911's and other items they don't know they have just yet.
I’ll continue to tell all of the political pollsters that are calling
that guns are THE issue and will determine how I will vote, though I’m
sure they will just be checking the ‘other’ box on their tally
sheets. I’m hoping that at least one candidate will come to my door
asking for my vote, though in my assembly district the anti-gun incumbent
has no strong opposition, and I’ve never, in 30 years of voting,
had a CONgressional or Senate or even state senate candidate stop by the
house. I want to tell them face to face that the gun issue is the ONLY
issue in my book. Not because it is the only one of course, but everything
else falls in place behind it. You’ve all seen the results when
you send a letter to them. Telling me they share ‘my concerns’
about the crime rate and guns in the schools and how they are strong on
crime isn’t quite what I wrote to them about. The canned answers
never seem to come even close to what you write about. Otherwise, my wife
and I have a good inventory that we put together back in the 80's, so
we will just sit back and wait. Because I'm sure that the fat lady hasn't
sung just yet.

So just what have we won?
A very brief window perhaps where SOME things will be available for a
while. A chance for 'us' to vote for 'them', along with the new $5000
a year pay raise they approved for themselves this month. A chance for
'them' to wait until they are safely re-elected before they have to do
'something' to fix some 'problem' the news media stirs up. And to take
another plank out from under our feet as we are standing with a rope around
our collective necks.

So have fun with the 'win.'
Celebrate the 'freedoms' we have 'won' from our masters. But don't be
too surprised if our masters take back more than they have granted us
just now. Remember, It's not in their collective interests to let us rattle
our chains too long - or too loudly.

Glen
R. Parshallis a husband and father, family man with
4 children ranging from 4 to 24 and a grandson, a gun and coin dealer,
former Boy Scout rifle and shotgun merit badge counselor who stopped
doing that when they told me I could no longer teach handgun safety
or even take along a handgun when I taught my gun classes, and a 13th
generation American who is proud of my ancestors who fought in both
the first American Revolution against tyranny under the king and the
second American Revolution when they fought for the Confederate States
of America to restore their short-lived freedoms. My wife and I both
have and use handguns, rifles, shotguns, muzzleloaders and machine guns,
and have multiple states CCW’s and we both work with guns on a
daily basis in our shops. She has had several occasions where her carrying
has prevented a crime from being committed against her.I started teaching my daughter to shoot
when she was five along with her older brother. When she was in the
second grade, I started her on an M-16. Better trigger control than
most adults I know. She graduated as class valedictorian and went into
the army for the educational benefits. In basic training she was the
only one in her group that shot well enough to qualify on the first
trip to the range.